Hosted by American Enterprise Institute, this event convened in November 2024 to discuss how marriage and work penalties may emerge in tax and transfer systems. The discussions explore the relationship between earned income, benefit phase-outs, and household structure.

This written testimony submitted to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability discusses how marriage penalties may arise across multiple public assistance programs. The testimony outlines arguments about the broader societal impacts of benefit cliffs and combined income calculations.

This Heritage Foundation analysis explores national trends in marriage and discusses potential economic and social implications of declining marriage rates. This resource raises questions relevant to TANF programs about how household structure, economic opportunity, and public benefits intersect.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast series covers timely topics in child welfare, family well-being, and systems change. These episodes can be a great professional learning resource for TANF staff, partners, and community providers engaged in cross-system work or serving families with complex needs.

Supporting families in reunification, which is the process of safely returning children in foster care to their parents, aligns closely with TANF’s mission to promote family stability and self-sufficiency. This California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse webpage highlights promising practices, program models, and outcome data related to reunification services. TANF agencies can use this resource to strengthen referrals, align supportive services, and integrate evidence-informed family support practices into their own workforce and case management strategies.

Families and young people navigating the foster care system often face complex challenges that intersect with TANF goals, from economic hardship to employment barriers and service access. This GovFacts resource list offers supports for parents, relatives, and youth involved in foster care, including legal help, educational resources, and pathways for youth transition planning. Sharing these tools with TANF participants can help enhance case management, improve stability, and connect families with critical supports.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs play a critical role in helping families move toward employment, stability, and long-term economic mobility, including through the use of career pathways, which are connected sequences of education, training, and work experiences that help individuals progress through chosen fields. STAR has created a catalog of career pathway toolkits to help TANF programs plan career pathway initiatives. 

To accompany the Career Pathways Toolkit Catalog, these Starter Pathways are designed to help TANF administrators and staff navigate the toolkits more efficiently and intentionally. 

Users can begin with Starter Pathways to identify where to start planning based on their role and quickly access the most relevant toolkit sections based on their career pathways goals.

This National Center for Diligent Recruitment resource describes what it means to build a “Kin-First” child welfare system that prioritizes placing children with relatives or familiar caregivers when out-of-home care is needed. It offers principles and practices for supporting kin caregivers with the right resources and engagement. TANF programs can use the kin-first framework to inform partnerships and service planning, especially when working with relatives raising children by aligning cash assistance, work supports, and family stability services with kinship-centered approaches.

This resource from the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network explains how Family First Prevention Services Act reimbursement can be used for services that help Native children and families before deeper child welfare involvement occurs. It offers practical guidance on eligible programs and supports that honor traditions and community strengths. For TANF programs serving Native families, this can inform cross-system coordination and funding alignment — helping connect participants to culturally grounded supports that reinforce family wellbeing alongside TANF’s economic goals.

This Child Welfare Playbook strategy highlights the value of tribal family coaches – community-based supports who work with families to navigate systems, build strengths, and connect to resources in culturally grounded ways. For TANF programs serving Native communities, this strategy provides a practical idea for how partnerships and staffing models can be designed to improve engagement, trust, and access to supports that promote both economic stability and family strengthening. Integrating or aligning with family coach roles can enhance service responsiveness and outcomes.